Fish Ideas for Personal Chefs by Ruth Paget
I read Jane Grigson’s Fish Book (563 pages organized by 52 species of edible fish with an index) as a follow-up to my Wisconsin 2026 Dairyland Vacation.
Grigson mostly deals with ocean fish, but her techniques and sauces work with freshwater fish too, which abound in Wisconsin’s rivers like the Wisconsin River and the Fox River and bordering Great Lakes.
When I was a child growing up in Detroit (Michigan), my mother took me on driving vacations from Detroit that led us through Gary (Indiana) and Chicago (Illinois) on the way to the relatives’ homes outside Madison, Wisconsin.
My grandparents had a cabin on the Wisconsin River, which runs to the Mississippi River, where we ate bass filets fried in bacon grease with hand-mashed potatoes. A side of canned green beans rounded out the North Woods meal. This is one of my favorite Wisconsin memories.
Grigson’s fish book provides recipes from around the world that work with fish from any US state. Her seasoned butters, sauces, and mayonnaise toppings provide easy, great variety for poached or fried fish:
-anise butter made with licorice-flavored pastis and butter that you can just melt on fish and sides like rice pilaf
-orange butter made with bitter Seville orange juice. This butter lightens fried fish and adds perkiness to pilafs and peas
-sauce au cidre gets is equally perky flavor from dry apple cider
-Pernod remoulade is a mayonnaise made with licorice-flavored Pernod mayonnaise
Four stand-out recipes that personal chefs might be interested in include:
-clam farcies (stuffed clams) made with a mixture of mushrooms, bacon, parsley, and chopped clams served on clam half shells
-cod with mushrooms made by frying cod and serving it with sautéed mushrooms on top.
-mullet baked with licorice-flavored fennel and pastis
-mullet Charente style, which is sautéed and then baked briefly with tomatoes, parsley, garlic, dry white wine, and Parmesan cheese
Fish lovers, personal chefs, and lovers of French food can all find delicious recipes to try in Jane Grigson’s Fish Book, which remains a classic recipe book.
Happy Cooking!
By Ruth Paget
-author Eating Soup with Chopsticks, Marrying France, and Europe’s Lessons written during overseas duty in Germany + 5 other Kindle books
-developer of the Novgorod and Bento War Games + 8 Classical Western Civilization War Games
-developer of food and beverage knowledge games
-creator of online exhibits about San Miguel Arcangel Mission, French baguette making, and the Carmel Valley History Center
-creator of French travel and culture games
-writer of 1900+ Central Coast California lifestyle blogs
-family genealogist
-developer of 9 music theory games
